Seattle Kraken shutout by Blues in 5-0 loss
Even Davy Jones couldn’t save this one.
For the first time since introducing their new team dog, the Kraken suffered a defeat — 5-0 to the St. Louis Blues at Climate Pledge Arena on Friday night. Davy had been dubbed a good luck charm for Seattle, who had lost nine straight games before he made his first appearance on Monday.
But while the Kraken put together back-to-back wins on Monday and Thursday, they fell just short of winning three straight games for the first time this season. Instead, Seattle allowed two first-period goals and never recovered from the early deficit.
“We’re coming off two wins, right?” said head coach Dave Hakstol. “We’re coming into a back-to-back so we want to get off to a good start. We know that we’re playing a team that’s really consistent with what they do.
“We know that in order to get the win, we have to do things really efficiently with the puck, make good plays, be real patient in the way we’re going about our game and not give anything up. That’s what got us tonight if you look at it. … You got to make teams work for those opportunities.”
The Blues opened the scoring with a short-handed goal at the 5:54 mark of the first period as backup goaltender Joey Daccord lost sight of Tyler Bozak. Brayden Schenn then scored a power-play goal at the 10:23 mark to push St. Louis’ lead to 2-0.
For Seattle, it was yet another example of a slow start and an early deficit.
“At the end of the day, getting behind in this league it’s way too hard to come back night in and night out,” said Kraken captain Mark Giordano, “especially against a team that plays as structured as (the Blues) do. They’re not going to give you anything if you don’t generate it and work for and work for your space.”
Neither team scored in the second period as Daccord — starting in place of Philipp Grubauer — found his footing. Typical backup goalie Chris Driedger was still in COVID-19 protocol on Friday.
But it took Pavel Buchnevich just 24 seconds to score in the third period and give St. Louis a 3-0 advantage. The Kraken couldn’t get the puck past St. Louis goalie Ville Husso, and the Blues finished with 21 blocked shots — including 10 in the first period.
And St. Louis wasn’t done scoring yet. Colton Parakyo pushed the advantage to 4-0 with a penalty shot before Jordan Kyrou scored at the 9:31 mark of the third period to produce the final score.
“I think we’ve done a pretty good job (this season) of gaining momentum for ourselves but I don’t think we did that tonight,” Giordano said. “In our second period, we had moments where we were a little bit better but again … I have to go back and look at it but we have to get one on the power play and generate some juice on our team.
“We couldn’t find a way to get going. Going into the third, you’re still down two at home, you still want to get that energy in the building and get one and get right back in. Obviously, they came out and after the fourth goal, after the penalty shot goal, it’s pretty deflating.”
It was the Kraken’s 13th loss in 16 games, and the third time they’ve been shut out this season.
Seattle — still in last place in the Pacific Division — has struggled through two extended losing streaks this season, one lasting six games and the other nine. Unfortunately for the Kraken, they haven’t been able to counter those stretches by stringing together more than two wins.
This week was no exception, and the task was made particularly difficult by the back-to-back games on Thursday and Friday.
“Back-to-backs are tough and they’re a good hockey team,” said Kraken forward Jordan Eberle. “If you make mistakes, they’re going to make you pay and that’s what they did tonight. You leave a game losing 5-0, it just sucks. There’s a lot of things that (went) wrong. Special teams, power play didn’t do anything. I had some bad turnovers myself and then they get a penalty shot. There’s a lot of plays that ended up in the back our net. It’s frustrating.”
Forty games into the schedule, the Kraken are still wrestling with many of the same issues that have plagued them since the start of the season.
It often seems like every step forward comes with more than two steps back.
“No one said this was going to be easy,” Eberle said. “You get a new expansion team. You have high expectations for yourselves, but you try to just get better every day. I think that’s the thing we really have to focus on in these final 40 or so games is try to grow an identity, grow as a team and continue to press it.
“We’ve had some moments this season where we beat some really, really good hockey teams and we’ve had moments where we haven’t. We have to find that consistency where we bring it night in and night out.”
This story was originally published January 21, 2022 at 10:36 PM.
